More creepy surveillance by the gestapo we call the U.S. Government.

Courtesy of the King of Zembla:

You are certainly aware of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's recent, rather disingenuous announcement that President Bush's illegal wiretapping program would henceforth be conducted under the supervision of the FISA court, as the law of the land dictates. You may be unaware, however, that the government has simultaneously undertaken a program of "full-pipe surveillance" -- that is to say, warrantless recording of internet traffic, from web browsing to e-mail -- on an unimaginably vast scale. The legal justification? Federal law says that snoopers must "minimize the interception of communications not otherwise subject to interception," which means that even if you have a warrant to bug a criminal suspect, you must take pains not to eavesdrop on innocent people. There is, however, an exemption for intercepted communications "in a code or foreign language" -- and one DoJ functionary, quoted in the story below, claims that since all digital communications amount to a foreign language or code, it should be perfectly obvious that "federal agents are legally permitted to record everything and sort through it later"

Since we've got the Mooninite up there in our banner today, i suppose we'll be put into the "to be monitored" pile. Also, we do tend to use the terms "terrorist" and "fascist" and "iraq" and "bush is a moron" quite frequently. And, we're big proponents of the Constitution and all. Oh, oh. We're part of the Reality-Based community. Not lookin' good for us at all...

Gee, what with all this freedom and democracy going on, it's hard to imagine anyone not wanting to get in on this.